


All The Stars

by Capbuckyang



Series: All The Stars [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Bodyguard, Developing Relationship, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capbuckyang/pseuds/Capbuckyang
Summary: It may not be the wisest of all decisions he will have to make for himself, his people, for Wakanda, but being King isn’t supposed to be easy.





	All The Stars

 

* * *

 

 

The council, despite having some of the oldest and wisest among them, can be a loud and incredibly frustrating group of almost toddlers during disagreements.

He remembers his father teaching him about listening to all sides, being diplomatic, allowing the elder's years of experience and judgement overrule some of his own wishes or thoughts. He also vividly remembers seeing the building in Oakland, California, shoddy and broken down now, with all its pain and misery stained over the carpets and walls.

It’s a difficult dichotomy to work through and in the end, T’Challa decides that he’ll take the good his father had to give and let go of old traditions and thoughts that he didn’t believe in.

“He stays,” T’Challa interrupts and the silence that follows feels deafening.

Okoye’s gaze pierces through him, and he can feel his own mother’s heart sinking next to him. He reaches out and holds her hand.

Her grimace softens, she squeezes back.

“He was given a fair trial, hasn’t been a problem to any of us for weeks, and he’s my blood.”

There’s a huff of arguments brewing, T’Challa can already feel it, and there’s a throbbing ache in his left temple. He’s tired of listening to every _what if_  reason they can come up with.

He wants to fix his father’s mistakes, do better, be stronger. It may not be the wisest of all decisions he will have to make for himself, his people, for Wakanda, but being King isn’t supposed to be easy.

“He stays, that’s final.”

 

*

 

Shuri’s always been the one with the bigger heart.

Of course, everyone doesn’t see it always, her humor and status as younger sibling obscuring her generosity, kindness, honesty. All her technology and science used for the good of Wakanda, for the people, and now for other’s outside of their little world.

She’s a healer; wounds, broken hearts, broken boys. Her smile and encouragement is sometimes the only thing that gets him out of bed some mornings and put on his robes and start his daily duties.

It still makes his hackles rise when he walks into her lab during the afternoon to find Erik sitting on one of the empty tables, watching her fix or tinker around with some tech, easily joking around like they’ve been friend’s forever, that he didn’t almost try to kill her a month ago.

Erik’s made amends since then, apologies and sincere words, maybe coming back from an almost death changes people.

It also doesn’t take much for Shuri, a bouquet of flowers, some background about your sadness, an interest in her tech, and she’s yours.

She’s innocent like that, powerful like that, because once she likes you, you'll love her and she'll have you wrapped around one of her delicate, industrious little fingers in no time. 

Shuri grins when he sees him and Erik sobers up a little, but not my much.

“Wassup, cuz?” he smirks and slouches lower, his thigh touching Shuri's elbow.

T’Challa stands behind Shuri and places a hand on her shoulder, squeezes gently.

“Oh stop it, brother, I’m doing fine,” Shuri leans back and looks up at him. T’challa smiles; he really loves her.

“I actually wanted to speak to you,” T’Challa says, looking back up at Erik.

“What’d I do now? I’ve been staying good,” he says and winks conspiratorially at Shuri who just rolls her eyes. It makes T’Challa ache sometimes, to think that Erik could have been raised with them, a brother to both him and Shuri, could have avoided all the anger and pain he had to live with.

“You two, try not to kill each other,” Shuri says as she gets up to leave them alone in her lab.

“I’ve got to check on my white boy Barnes anyway,” Shuri says and T’Challa can’t help but laugh a little. Bucky is one of her favorites, he’s good with kids, despite all the killer tendencies, he’s soft at heart. He tries harder than everyone else, much like his best friend Cap, and he gives his full worth in learning, getting better.

Shuri adores broken puppies, Bucky’s one of the most shattered. Although, Erik would come as a close second.

It’d be an outright lie to say she wasn’t a huge factor in how much he’s changed.

“The council needs me to choose a personal body guard,” T’Challa starts out as easy and conversational as possible. Erik’s face closes up, almost imperceptible, but T’Challa notices, he’s been trained for years to read body language, asses how people react to words, gestures.

“Goin’ on a mission, cuz? South Korea wasn’t enough for you?”

T’challa doesn’t rise to the bait, stays calm and sees the way it annoys Erik. It almost makes him laugh. He might have gone through hell, become a monster at times, but in the end, he’s a kid at heart with childish tendencies.

“Someone I know will be strong enough to protect me, kill for me, die for me,” T’Challa continues and watches Erik go from closed off to confused and resistant to more open, waiting.

“Someone I trust with my life, my people’s lives,” T’Challa finishes and Erik gets up, circles him a little and he looks so out of place here, in Shuri’s lab, even with clothes from Wakanda draped over his shoulders, the violence and mistrust on his face doesn’t belong.

“You want me to do it,” Erik says finally and T’Challa nods.

His father always gave him a task T'Challa wasn't sure he could bear, knowing in his heart his father thought he could bear it, which was all the motivation he needed to succeed. Knowing someone's in your corner, someone who believes in you rather than hates, hurts, and envies you can go a long way.

He's seen it, experienced it, know it to be true. 

“They need a reason to let me stay,” Erik says after watching T’Challa for a few minutes and it’s not completely wrong so he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t go out of his way to tell him that the council has no say in if Erik stays or not, that T’Challa already decided he would the second he looked up at him with tears in his eyes, hand on the spear in his chest, telling him he’d rather die than be a prisoner. When he woke up gasping, clawing at his own chest, crying out for a father that died years ago, fighting against everyone who touched him, clinging to T’Challa’s hand on his cheek after, confessing he has nothing left, nowhere to go anymore, no reason to live.

“What makes you think you can trust me? That I ain’t gonna give you up the second it gets bad out there? That I’ll save you?” Erik asks, so close to him now, he can see the little scar across the bridge of his nose, eyes angry, but essentially scared, always so scared.

“I’ll just have to trust you, won’t I?"

 

*

 

Okoye would never leave him alone, he doesn’t question it, but she comes close when he informs her that the jaguar would be the panther’s shadow from now on.

“He was ready to kill everyone, burn it all down, kill children,” Okoye argues with him late one night, after they both saw Nakia off.

He’s still feeling the ache of that loss, misses her even if it’s been a mere few minutes, but he knows it’s the right thing. The only way she’ll be content here is if she can fulfill her calling, help everyone in need, and if that wasn’t one of the reasons T’challa is utterly in love with her, he would have fought harder about staying here at home with him.

“People change, Okoye,” T’Challa says for the millionth time and Okoye glares at him.

“I know you’d risk your life like it means nothing, but I cannot risk you like that, my King.”

“He’s my cousin,” T’Challa says finally, sinking back against his bed, watching Okoye’s frustration peak, her hand around her spear tightening.

“He’s a killer,” she counters back, eyes sharp.

“Aren’t we all?”

“T’Challa,” she starts, almost pleading now, but T’Challa’s exhausted, tired of fighting everyone in the damn world about doing what he thinks is right.

When he was younger, there was a little girl getting bullied by  a group of kids. They were harassing her over the dead baby bird in her hands, telling her she was stupid for thinking she could heal a bird, she was just a little girl, she could do nothing. T'Challa had left his father's side, even though he knew he'd get in trouble. 

He found her by the water fountain after, holding the little bird in her hands, tears streaming down her face. 

"I can help you fix her," T'Challa had said and she looked up at him with big, brown watery eyes and T'Challa knew that vibranium could heal anything. He was young, he was soft hearted, sympathetic. He handed over his vibranium bracelet to her. She gave him a small smile and ran off with it, little bird clutched in her hand. 

Her father was a part of the black market, sold the vibranium to a corporate group that tried to hunt their way back into Wakanda. 

He was lectured at home, his father's worry visibly fighting against his anger, and he had felt so guilty, so awful, for upsetting his parents, for putting his country at risk, for giving into a picture of a sad little girl and her big brown eyes. 

In the end, T'Challa learned not to trust the world so easily, but his heart was still soft. 

Maybe what he's doing now isn’t right, maybe he’s completely in the wrong, but what he knows is that Erik, _N’Djaka_ , was treated with injustice, left alone in a world that ruined him, ruins others.

He wants to make it better, do right by the little boy who had to leave a basketball court and come home to find his father dead on the floor with claws across his chest.

“Trust me, even if you don’t trust him,” T’Challa says and Okoye’s trust and love for the throne, for him runs a mile wide, he knows it, and using it against her like this is probably a shitty thing to do, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Goodnight, my King,” she leaves just as she came, quiet and silently fuming, but in agreement, because he is the King.

God, how draining and devastating it is to be King, T’Challa thinks to himself, and falls asleep, ignoring all the maids asking if he wants to bathe, to change, to eat anything.

He just wants to sleep.

 

*

 

The ritual is more ceremony than anything else, naming the jaguar as the panther’s shadow, created to protect and be one with the King.

Erik scoffs at the idea of it the second T’Challa brings it up. He also reaches over and steals T’Challa’s sesame and basil bread roll, biting into it like it’s nothing.

It’s ridiculous how little things of normalcy makes T’Challa feel warm inside.

“It’s short and simple, just don’t make a scene.”

“When have I ever made a scene, cuz?” Erik grins, sharp and knowing. 

They don't eat together often, but when his day is less loaded, when he can catch a breath, he tries to be with Shuri in her lab, or down here in the hallway that leads to the balcony of Erik's bedroom, right inside the palace. He has a room here, a bed, a gym, his own wardrobe set, but he stays out near the huts where Barnes and the other farmer's live more often than not. 

It's rare to find him in here, let alone share a meal with him.

Maybe T'Challa's sentimental, or attached to rituals and traditions since he's been raised that way, watched the way his father was honored, holding onto Shuri's hand near the waterfall, knowing it'd be him one day.

He doesn't expect Erik to understand, nor does he want him too, but the council, his people, they follow traditions like a a religion and he can't take it away from them. 

Appeasing both Wakanda and still trying to make amends with his cousin are on two different planes of existence that he's trying to weave together. 

"Erik, this is important," T'Challa says calmly, seriously, and the everlasting smirk on Erik's face fades a little. He says nothing for a few minutes, eating silently, and then realizes his drink is finished and holds his hand out for T'Challa's.

T'Challa doesn't understand it, why Erik so purposefully likes to share with him, his time, his food, his company, but then he realizes that he might be as lonely as T'Challa feels sometimes.

T'Challa hands the glass over and Erik drinks from where T'Challa's mouth had touched the rim of the glass, holding his gaze. 

"What do I got to wear to this thing anyway?" Erik asks after, breaking the oddly tense moment and T'Challa laughs softly. 

 

*

 

He doesn’t make a scene, but maybe it’s because he forgets to, while kneeling in the cool water in front of T’Challa, raised scars rippling in the sunlight, eyes looking straight into T’Challa’s eyes as he makes his vows in his mother tongue, willing to give his knowledge, strength, and life for the Black Panther.

It feels unexpectedly like a wedding, tying their lives together, the music and words of tradition background noise and T’Challa resists laughing when he put his hand on the back of Erik’s neck, claiming him as his own.

He always imagined his wedding with Nakia to be the brightest, most memorable day.

This feels just as monumental, feeling the scars under his hand, watching Erik give himself up to the King in a way he’d probably die before than ever do.

Erik's eyes are wide, clear, almost like he’s accepted his fate. He leans his head down, bows in front of his King, wears the golden necklace around his neck and it's oddly surprising how powerful, yet non threatening he looks with it on now. 

Erik stands, and they hold each other's wrist. He smiles when the ritual ends, and it's dazzling and bright in the sunlight. 

Maybe that’s what makes it so easy for T’Challa to trust him with his life.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://tchallacap.tumblr.com)


End file.
